Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here
Monday mornings tend to be congenitally grim, but yesterday was especially grim, as we heard the tragic news. We discovered that David Cameron was still alive, despite a news reader accidentally announcing that David Cameron had died. How quickly we were catapulted through the emotions: from joy to disbelief when her mistake was instantly corrected and we discovered that the dead person was actually David Bowie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpnYDRi2rVM
The reason for her confusion was seemingly down to her reading the line below the one she was meant to be reading, which was a statement from David Cameron about Bowie.
Obviously when you think of Bowie you naturally think of Cameron. I suppose the two are just invariably linked together. Bowie Cameron, Cameron Bowie – they have been synonymous with each other for as long as I can remember. So it seemed only natural and right that David Cameron should offer up a few words about Bowie.
“He was a master of re-invention, who kept getting it right” said David Cameron whilst wiping the tears away from his red roar eyes. Then he realised that he’d never actually heard a Bowie song in his entire life.
Suddenly he began to panic. He knew it was only a matter of minutes before he started getting phone calls from journalists asking him Bowie related questions.
He shuddered at the memory of the last time he’d tried to appear normal, as if he was just like those ordinary members of the public he loathed so much. He didn’t want a repeat of the West Ham/Aston Villa debacle. But he knew he had just opened a potential can of worms with this pro-Bowie proclamation.
In a panic, he grabbed the phone, intending to call one of his advisors to prime him with as many Bowie facts as they could. But Cameron was getting smarter and better at this sincerity game. He knew that it wouldn’t be enough to simply have his head stuffed full of facts; he needed to assimilate emotion too. How did Bowie’s music make people feel? What might a normal David Cameron in a parallel universe have felt when he listened to Bowie growing up? which this David Cameron in this universe certainly had never done.
Then he had a vague memory of something he’d heard from someone somewhere once. When he’d thought the word “universe” it had sparked it off. Oh yes, he was starting to remember. Didn’t David Bowie sing something about space? Yes, brilliant. He’d remember that for later, in case a journalist cornered him, catching him unaware. But he’d need more information than that.
He grabbed the receiver, ready to dial one of his advisors, but before his finger pressed “the first button he realised that there was someone on the line. Shit! He knew it would be a journalist. Someone who didn’t like him on the switchboard must have putt them straight through without warning him. He wrestled with names in his head, trying to figure out who on the switchboard might hate him, but that just made his head hurt. Too much information! Brain overload!
“Hello?” Cameron offered tentatively.
“What’s your favourite Bowie song Mr Prime Minister” came the voice.
His brain began to fizz, his heart beat faster and faster, his breath grew shallower. Desperately, he reached for his computer. If he could just stall for time while he found Bowie’s Wikipedia page.
“Sorry, it’s a bad line, what did you say?”
“What’s your favourite Bowie song Prime Minister?”
His hands were shaking so much that he accidentally started typing boobies instead of Bowie. Instantly his Internet history tabs began lighting up. He thought he’d deleted all that stuff. His wife had been furious when she’d discovered all the filthy things he’d been looking at, and no amount of telling her to “calm down dear” had helped placate her.
His hands began to shake even more. The voice on the phone was speaking again.
“Mr Cameron? I said, what’s your favourite Bowie song? One of the ones you used to listen to growing up maybe?”
His hands were shaking so much that he accidentally clicked on one of his Internet history links. It was that blog from that folk singer he accidentally stumbled across when he’d spent that entire day looking at Mongolian lesbian sex scenes. (if you didn’t read yesterday’s Dollop then that’ll mean nothing to you, but trust me, it does make sense and was extremely funny).
The voice came again, more insistent. His hands were shaking too much to type in the words he needed in order to reach the Wikipedia page. In a mad panic he shouted down the phone, “that one about space, the one about space, you know the one. I loved it. Still do. I was listening to it only yesterday actually. Love the chorus. Very catchy.”
Shit! Why did he always have to overcomplicate things by adding extra bits of information. Did that song about space even have a chorus? He had no idea. The person on the other end of the phone laughed derisively. Instantly, relief flooded his whole body. It was Rebekah Brooks. It was only Rebekah, deer Rebekah, and he and her were best of friends. There’d been that weird period in their friendship when she’d been hanging out with Tony Blair quite a lot too, but that was all in the past. He knew he was safe. He let out an audible sigh of relief.
“Good luck David,” she giggled, and hung up.
Phew, that could have been a disaster. His hands, now steady, found the Wikipedia page, he then logged into his Spotify account. He pressed play on the David Bowie page, called his people to get them to postpone the morning’s appointments and prepared to assimilate information. He might get away with this yet.
Rest in peace David Bowie. Ashes to Ashes, funk to funky,.
Oh and just for the record, the best David Bowie song is clearly the laughing Gnome. But that one about space is pretty good too, you’re quite right Mr Cameron.
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